Prezi

Last Friday was a Professional development day for several Christian schools, in the lower mainland, including the one I teach at. I decided to attend a series of workshops related to technology and experiential learning.  I always go into these days hoping to come away with one new thing that will make a difference in my day to day teaching. I actually got a few tidbits on Friday, but one that really got my attention was an online zooming presentation program called Prezi. I had seen this program before but it hadn’t really grabbed my attention. This time it was different. As is often the case this little nugget came to me indirectly. The keynote speaker did not talk about Prezi but he used it to complement his address.

So over the weekend I had a go at Prezi and found out that a Public account is free. For a bit of cash you can upgrade to an Enjoy account or the fully featured Pro account. I was pleased that as a teacher I was able to sign up for the Enjoy account for free. I signed up and spend a couple of hours on Saturday playing around with the program. It was quite easy to get the basic idea but it took a little more time to figure out how all the different tools work. Nevertheless I was able to get the idea fairly quick and plan to put together a Prezi or two this week for use in my classes. I’m also eager to get my students creating their own Prezi for a class presentation.

Yes Minister

Have you ever wondered who holds the real power in government? We are led to believe that it is the elected officials but is this really the case? In the Social Studies 11 course I teach, one of the topics in the curriculum is government. Within the government unit I discuss with the students the role of the Cabinet and Cabinet Ministers. In Canada, the Cabinet Minister is appointed to his department by the Prime Minister. However, under responsible government the Prime Minister is expected to choose his ministers from those who have been elected into the House of Commons. Occasionally, they appoint a non-elected Senator but that is definitely not the norm. So what you end up with in most cases, is an elected official who is responsible to the voters at the head of each government department. It all sounds so democratic. But is it really?

When dealing with this topic I also introduce the students to the role of the Deputy Minister. He is not an elected official, but is a civil servant in the bureaucracy who has likely, because of his or her talents, risen to the top of the department. Having been in the department for years, likely even under different governments and Cabinet Ministers, the Deputy Minister would have a much better working knowledge of the department and would therefore have considerable unofficial power. A shrewd Deputy Minister, who has been in the department for decades, could even informally exercise more power than an elected Cabinet Minister, who was just assigned to the portfolio. It’s not sounding so democratic anymore is it?

When studying to be a teacher at the University of Lethbridge in the late 1980s, my Political Science professor recommended we watch the British comedy Yes Minister, in order to better understand the relationship between a minister and his deputy.  It took me until last weekend to follow up on my professor’s recommendation.  Last week our family decided to try Netflix. We found it to work flawlessly, and at only eight dollars a month it’s hard to go wrong. On a whim I did a search for Yes Minister and was pleasantly surprised to find it. After enjoying several episodes, I must confess that, despite the typical dry exaggeration of British comedy, Yes Minister helped me better understand the relationship between a minister and his or her deputy, and I wonder who does have the real power in government.

Book Review: "The Case For Civility"

Our world is changing at breakneck speed and much of the change is driven by social media. As I write this Hosni Mubarak has been forced to resign as president of Egypt because of the pressure from common people communicating through the social media and cell phone networks. What fills the power vacuum in Egypt remains to be seen and hopefully the new government will stand up for all its citizens, including a sizable minority of Coptic Christians. New governments, in the last decade in Iraq and Afghanistan, may seem to be more democratic, but it may be as dangerous, or even more in the case of Iraq, to be a Christian in these countries today. And the problem does not only exist in these countries, but even in modern democracies like Canada and the United States, where Christians tend to be either marginalized or radicalized. How can people who look at the world in fundamentally different ways co-exist in society in a peaceful way that fosters community instead of breaking it down? This is the subject of a book I recently enjoyed by Os Guinness titled The Case For Civility.

I found the book very helpful in shaping my thoughts about how to think about the Christians role in society and culture. Typically, Christians have responded to our secular culture in one of two ways. Liberals, seeking to be inclusive, have embraced it and adapted their dogma so they can fit right in. Conservatives especially those in the religious right have attempted to change society to fit their beliefs, but often without much social conscience. And then there are the secularists who wish to deny any debate that has any basis in matters of faith. Os Guinness argues for a different approach. The titles of two chapters in the center of the book sum up his argument nicely. Chapter Four, Say No to the Sacred Public Square, argues that tying public policy to one distinct faith, like Christianity or Islam, is dangerous. One only needs to look to Afghanistan or Iraq to see what happens to faith minorities when public policy is tied too tightly to one faith. On the other hand it is also folly to divorce all discussion of religion from public policy as Guinness argues in Chapter Five, Say No to the Naked Public Square. What is needed is a cosmopolitan and civil public square as he argues in Chapter Six. In Canada and the United States we may not be burning heretics at the stake, as we have not completely forgotten  Servetus’s advice, when he said, “To kill a man is not to defend a doctrine, but to kill a man”,  but neither have we completely embraced Milton’s  advice, “to let truth and falsehood grapple”.

Hopefully the framers of the new government in Egypt read The Case For Civility and consider its wisdom before we see another country fall victim to too tight a connection between religious fundamentalism and government policy. 

Which Album is Number 1?

In December 1965 the Beatles came out with Rubber Soul. Brian Wilson of the Beach Boys was so impressed with the album, and the way that all the songs fit so well together, that it motivated him to produce an album that did the same. The result was the highly acclaimed album Pet Sounds. The Beatles not to be outdone responded with Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

In 2003 Rolling Stone magazine named Sgt. Pepper as the best album of all time and put Pet Sounds in the number 2 position. The question I put to you, my friends, is the following: Do you agree that Sgt. Pepper is better than Pet Sounds?

Personally, I think Rolling Stone made a mistake. Before you disagree you should listen to Pet Sounds several times. I would love to hear your comments.